EMMANUEL LEVINAS AND THEODOR ADORNO ON ETHICS AND AESTHETICS

Abstract

This article examines similarities between Theodor Adorno’s account of the artwork’s disorienting effect on subjectivity in Aesthetic Theory and Emmanuel Levinas’s description of the effect of alterity on the subject in Otherwise than Being. By exposing these shared concerns, it is possible to attribute a Levinasian ethical dimension to Adornian aesthetic experience and thereby push Adorno beyond his reliance on a privative description of aesthetics. In making this argument, this article hopes to broaden the scope of artistic practices onto which Adorno’s aesthetic theory can be brought to bear.